Posted by: VM | 4 August 2009

The Cowes protest makes it impossible for Vestas to consider the case closed

The fight isn’t over. No one could even say it looks like it: there’s a banner hanging on top of the biggest visual ‘welcome to the Isle of Wight’ to greet incoming ferries. The people on the Cowes factory vow they will stay there until the decision to cut those green-collar jobs is reversed.
As the Financial Times put it, with a sigh, it is “unclear” whether the repossession order ends the dispute. Damn right: the workers, from what I’m hearing this morning, want to continue the protest, even if they leave the premises peacefully once the legal documents are presented to them.
Our focus as activists should now encompass the Cowes factory occupation as well as the Newport site.

Report from the Isle of Wight Country Press:
[…]
Last week, Judge White adjourned the Vestas application because he was not satisfied paperwork had been properly served.
Today (Tuesday) he said he was satisfied the defendants knew about the proceedings and the nature of the possession claim.
James Fieldsend, representing the occupiers, argued that because solicitors acting for them had been instructed by the workers not to receive the paperwork on their behalf that it had not been properly served.
He said Vestas had still “not got its house in order” and presented sufficient evidence that personal service had been impossible at the factory.
But for Vestas, Adam Rosenthal said the workers’ solicitors were given the paperwork by the Vestas legal team late last week.
“It is clear the defendants do know about the proceedings and their instruction to their solicitors was a way of avoiding service.
“The defendants have not tried to put forward any justification in law for their actions. If the court were to refuse this application it would be a case of it condoning unlawful occupation.”


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